As it turned out, being at level one meant that he had a pretty small amount of Mana. So much so that after firing off four more piercing rays, he was out of it.
Eorna finished off her own Spinling that she was dealing with, flashing Kurose a smile as he got the experience for it, finally leveling up to two. She handed him the dead Spinling, and he happily absorbed it into his weapon, to turn it into energy later.
"So, what's your plan now that you're out of Mana?" Eorna asked him curiously. "If you think I'm gonna go easy on you just because of that, you're wrong!"
"I'm not expecting you to. As for what I'm going to do…"
Kurose took a moment to think about it. Now that he had reached level two, he could actually swap to the two other weapon forms he had gotten. Namely, the Iron Bracelet, and the Spinling Parasol.
He thought about it for a moment before deciding to go with the parasol. At least with that, he could actually hit something.
He quickly swapped to it, getting a small noise from Eorna..
"What? You don't have only amulets?" She asked, surprise evident in her voice.
She looked towards her own dagger before speaking again. "This sucks! I'm stuck with only a dagger!"
"Well, you can actually attack monsters with your weapon, so I would say you came out of this better than me." Kurose spoke blandly.
"I… Well, yeah, but…" Eorna sputtered out before shaking her head. "Still! Maybe I wanted to use a different weapon or something! Did you think of that?"
Kurose looked at her for a moment, and Eorna sighed.
"Never mind…" She shook her head before changing the subject. "What I wanna know is what other things can your weapon transform into?"
Kurose took a step back as Eorna got closer to him. "Uh… well, there's the amulet, like you saw, I copied a bracelet from Amarita, and got this…" He used his free hand to gesture towards the parasol. "from absorbing a Spinling."
Eorna took a moment to look over the parasol, and Kurose did the same. It looked like any other parasol he had seen, with two exceptions. The first was the green gem at the bottom of the pole, and the second was the actual top of the Parasol. It looked exactly like the upper half of a Spinling.
"Huh, it kind of looks like a Spinling, right? It's even got the small wooden bit on top that they have." Eorna commented, saying what Kurose had just been thinking
Kurose hummed, and Eorna seemed to take that as a sign to continue poking and prodding the Spinling Parasol, looking it over.
Whilst that was happening, Kurose attempted to apply an enchantment to the weapon form. Attempted being the key word. He found that he couldn't do it unless the weapon form had its abilities unlocked. That sucked, but he guessed it was reasonable.
It would have been nice to have been told that when reading the method, but he knew now at least.
"Right, I should be fine to continue. I'll just have to fight with this instead of my Charme for a while."
He made sure it was shut before swinging it around, earning a smile from Eorna.
"Alright, if you're sure. I think the score was… Six for me, four for you, right?"
Kurose huffed at that, but nodded his head. "Yeah, it was. I'll catch up for sure though."
Eorna smiled at him. "We'll see about that."
The pair looked at each other for a moment, and Kurose caught sight of a Spinling that appeared from the bushes behind Eorna.
He dashed past her, much to Eorna's confusion, jabbing forward with his parasol. It hit into the creature before sending it backwards slightly.
Kurose frowned at that, but Eorna caught onto what Kurose was doing and began to move towards the Spinling Kurose was jabbing at. He took another step forwards, jabbing his parasol at it again. A moment later, Eorna slashed at it and it finally fell down.
"Damn, I knew my attack stat was low, but two jabs to not even get rid of a Spinling?" He spoke with a sigh.
"I'm sure you'll be fine! Why don't we just find another Spinling, and we try and figure out how long it takes?" Eorna suggested, earning a nod from Kurose.
A distance behind the two heroes, Woodrow and Orith were speaking.
"How long do you believe Amarita will keep the two here?" Orith asked the wizard.
"No idea." He admitted with a shrug. "She hasn't told me much, other than the fact that I will be teaching them about Charmes. Anything else other than that is out of my paygrade."
"Hm…Hopefully his majesty can convince her to give them the opportunity to leave once he is back. We don't want the other countries to accuse us of keeping the two chained here…"
"That's true. But surely the Jewelry Tools Hero will be coming here to register to our hourglass, right?" He asked Orith. "If he does, then surely we can just allow him to take the two of them. Then he can help them level up faster, as well as giving better materials."
"That may be correct, but are you sure the two of them would actually survive being in Palinfa?" He asked with a raised eyebrow. "I'm aware that the Jewelry tools Hero is trying to change things over there, but the lords and ladies are stuck in their ways."
"Hmm…" Woodrow seemed to think about it for a moment, and Orith turned to look towards the two heroes.
He watched as the Accessory Hero batted a Spinling away from the Dagger Hero, with her letting out a shout whilst he laughed about it. He couldn't stop the small smile that made its way onto his face.
"I suppose that is an issue. It has been quite a while since I've been to Palinfa, so I'm not all that caught up I'm afraid. Maybe I should soon…" Woodrow answered finally. "It has been a while since I have seen Feibyn…"
"Really? You still talk to the dwarf?" Orith questioned, earning a smile from Woodrow.
"Of course I do. We send letters to each other. Mainly to share any projects we are working on. Nothing more."
"Sure, sure" Orith answered, a small grin on his face.
To save himself from any sort of teasing Orith would give him, Woodrow changed the subject.
"Should we lead them deeper into the forest? It doesn't look like the Spinlings are providing much of a challenge anymore."
"Planning on them facing some Aransilks and Threadspitters already?" Orith questioned him.
"Yep. I'm sure Kurose and Eorna will be able to handle them just fine! Plus, if not, we can step in to help."
"That is true…" Orith murmured to himself. Despite that, he still seemed unsure.
"Plus," Woodrow added on, as if to reassure the older man. "The heroes need more experience! We can't just keep having them fight against Spinlings! It would be an insult to them! You don't want to insult them by thinking they can't handle anything slightly tougher, right?"
Orith let out a sigh, caving to Woodrow's suggestions. "Fine, fine. We will take them further into the forest. Only if they think they are ready though." He spoke with a frown.
"Of course. Kurose, Eorna!" Woodrow shouted, getting the two heroes' attention. "How do you feel about heading further into the forest? Find some new stuff for both your weapons, and better experience?"
"I'm good with that!" Eorna called back.
"Same here!" Kurose responded.
"See? I told you they would be fine with it." Woodrow spoke with a grin, ignoring Oriths mutterings.
"Come on then. Let's get going! We haven't got all day!" He called out.
The group of four walked further into the forest with pretty much no struggle. The only issue they had was when a group of Spinlings attempted to attack the group. They were dealt with easily by both Kurose and Eorna.
Once they had gone a bit further, Kurose spoke up. "So… what are we actually looking for? Any specific sort of monster, or just stronger Spinlings?"
"Aransilk spiders, and Threadspitters. It's unlikely we will find any Threadspitters, due to us being this close to the city and being in a group." Upon seeing Kurose's confusion, he explained further.
"Threadspitters prefer to ambush their prey when they are alone. Aransilks, on the other hand, jump down from the tree tops. They have a thin membrane which helps them glide down, which is connected to their abdomen."
"Okay. Now, how big are they?" He asked Orith. He really hoped they were not absolutely massive.
Orith seemed to think about it for a moment, and Eorna jumped in. "Oh! I can answer that! It depends on their level! The ones around here… i would guess they are probably as big as your hand? Maybe just a little bit bigger?"
"The Dagger-" Eorna glared at him, and Orith corrected himself. "Eorna, my apologies, is correct. Around here, they should only be about the size of your hand. There may be some that are slightly bigger, but nothing you need to worry about."
Kurose nodded his head, trying and failing to hide his frown.. "So, we just keep walking until we find… something?" He asked with a frown.
"Yep. Though it shouldn't take long." Woodrow spoke up, joining the conversation. "How's the Charme working out for you?" He asked curiously.
"It's good. Sucks that I can't use it much, but it's fine." Kurose answered, falling into step beside Woodrow. Eorna and Orith walked ahead of them, leaving the two to their conversation.
"Ah, the pains of being a low level magician. Your Mana just can't keep up in fights." Woodrow spoke. He held a small smile on his face, as if thinking about something.
After a moment of silence, Kurose spoke up. "Is there any way to get Mana back quicker? Like some sort of Mana potion or something?"
Woodrow looked at him before shaking his head. "Not as far as I'm aware. There have been attempts. Some genius managed to get some of his sold on the market by showing that they actually worked. I'll admit, it was a good idea, but some of the ingredients he used for it did not react well…"
"In what way?"
"Well, as it turns out he added plenty of poisonous stuff to it without even trying to neutralize it and thought that drinking it would be perfectly fine for his health. Safe to say he didn't exactly live long after that. Though the potion did technically work…"
Woodrow shook his head at that. "Ah, but supposedly there were Mana Potions in the past. Just a shame the recipe has been lost…"
"So, Mana potions are out of the question for now."
"They are. I could see about getting some sort of Accessory for you to help with Mana regeneration?" He suggested, earning a nod from Kurose.
"That would be good! But would I actually be able to…?" He trailed off at that, hoping Woodrow would catch what he was trying to say.
Woodrow, not knowing of his weapons limitations, gave him an odd look. "Actually be able to what?"
"Use other Accessories?" Seeing his look, Kurose explained further. "I can't hold other weapons, like swords or anything, so would the Holy Accessory actually let me use another Accessory?"
"Huh, I didn't know that. I just thought you were just being stubborn or something." He spoke with a shrug. "As for using other Accessories, well, we will just have to find out, won't we? I will see if I can find an Accessory with a mana recovery enchantment on it. If not, then we will have to think of something else."
"That's fine… though are you sure there isn't a way to make those mana potions more suitable to use?"
"There could be," Woodrow responded, a hand on his chin as he seemed to think about it. "But the main issue is the guy just didn't write down the recipe he used. All he did was list off a couple of the things he used in the creation of it. If we went off of that, then we would need to try out hundreds of combinations, and I'm not sure who's going to want to drink mixtures that do who knows what."
Kurose nodded his head in understanding. He noticed a couple experience notifications and went to speak, to suggest that they should probably catch up to the other two. However, before he could, his vision went dark.
"Huh?" Was all he could say. Beside him, Woodrow let out a laugh.
The thing obscuring his vision seemed to move, and Kurose felt the sensation of eight legs crawling along his face.
He let out a shout, his hand batting away the spider. The Aransilk landed perfectly fine on the floor, seemingly no injury on it, rubbing its two front legs together. It moved to leap again, but Kurose didn't give it a chance, instead stabbing at it with his parasol.
It took a few hits, with the spider scurrying around the forest floor, but Kurose finally managed to skewer it. Instead of moving to pick it up, just as he had done to the Spinlings before, he shook his head, his free hand moving to brush over his face.
"Urgh… That was disgusting! Why didn't you help out?" Kurose shouted to Woodrow. "It feels like it's still on my face!"
Woodrow was still laughing, even as he answered Kurose. "My fault, but you have to admit, it was funny."
"No it wasn't! I had a damned spider on my face!" Kurose shouted back.
"Well, maybe you should have been paying better attention to your surroundings?" He suggested cheerfully, getting a groan out of Kurose.
"Hey guys, what's up? I heard shouting." Came the voice of Eorna. She took one look at the pair of them before her eyes focused on the Aransilk spider currently curled up on the floor.
"Oh great! You took one out as well! What are you looking at me like that for?" She asked Kurose, noticing him glaring at her. Woodrow laughed again.
"It landed on my face!"
"Oh. That's it? I had two of them crawling up my arms. They aren't that bad." She spoke simply.
"Not that bad, she says…" Kurose grumbled to himself. "Try having one on your face then say it's not that bad…" He let out a sigh, finally having composed himself enough to pick up the Aransilk.
He absorbed it into his weapon as fast as he could, not wanting to hold it for any longer than he had to.
Aransilk Spider Parasol 0/5
(Abilities Locked) Equip Bonus: +4 Agility
Equip Effect: Glide
An Equip Effect? Kurose thought to himself. I remember reading about them last night…
Despite wanting to test it out right now, he opted to stay with the Spinling Parasol. Until he at least unlocked its equip bonus. Then he would switch over to this.
"Where's Orith?" Woodrow asked as Kurose continued to look over the weapon form.
"Hm? Oh, he's still in front of us! We killed some Aransilks over there, but it seems like that one got past us, huh?"
"Yeah, looks like it did. Come on, let's go catch up to him. Don't want him thinking we left him alone out here, even if he can handle himself."
It didn't take the trio long to get back to Orith, with the man having several Aransilk spiders at his feet, as well as some string.
"Did you take them all out?" Kurose asked the man, getting a shake of his head.
"Nope, that was Eorna. She was going to absorb them until she heard you shout, then she ran off. What exactly happened?"
"Nothing, it's fine." Kurose spoke quickly, shooting the other two a look. Eorna simply smiled at him, whilst Woodrow began to whistle. Kurose let out another sigh before reaching down to pick up some of the string.
His parasol's gem glowed slightly as it came closer, and with a bit of curiosity, he let the weapon absorb it.
Aransilk String Scarf 0/5
(Abilities Locked) Equip Bonus: +2 Agility, Skill; "Erst Scarf"
Kurose let out a surprised noise, earning a confused look from Eorna. Upon seeing her, he explained.
"I just absorbed the string and got a skill. It's called Erst Scarf."
"Oh! You got a skill? That's great!" She spoke cheerfully. "Though, if you wanna use it, you are gonna have to either equip the weapon form, or unlock the equip bonus!"
She paused for a moment. "Wait, you got a weapon form for the string?!" She shouted, diving down to pick up and absorb some for herself.
"I see…" Kurose spoke, ignoring Eorna for now.
He hesitated for a moment before letting out a sigh. He would just have to unlock the equip bonus at a later date. It was probably better to focus on skills, right?
He swapped to the scarf, noticing that it seemed a bit small. He put it over the back of his neck, finding that it was short enough to not be able to fully wrap around his neck. It wasn't like it mattered much, due to it being attached to him, but he still didn't like it.
Eorna, having finished absorbing some string, poked at the scarf, lifting it up and checking it over. Whilst she was doing that, Orith and Woodrow gave Kurose the Aransilk spiders, letting him absorb them into the gem of the scarf. He would be converting them all into energy eventually for Item Enchantment.
Once Eorna was done poking and prodding at the scarf, she spoke up. "So… gonna show us what that skill can do?" She asked, seemingly curious.
"Sure, if you show me what you got from yours?" He offered, earning a smile from Eorna.
"Deal! Now come on! Use the skill!"
"Alright, Alright, how do I do it? Do I just… say the skill name?"
"Yeah! Though I read that some of them have motions to activate as well? I'm not sure about that though. Just trying to say it for now."
Kurose nodded his head. "Erst Scarf"
Beside him, a scarf appeared, a similar colour to the gem of his weapon. He tilted his head, looking at it for a moment before flicking his hand towards a tree. The glowing scarf shot off, wrapping around the tree trunk.
"Huh, it looks like it's trying to restrain it?" Eorna asked questioningly, earning a shrug from Kurose.
"I guess so? We would need to find something to actually use it on to find out, right?" Kurose spoke simply.
"Yeah, I guess so." Eorna spoke with a hum. "My turn!"
She lifted her dagger, letting Kurose see. Everything from the hilt down seemed to be the same as before, whilst the actual blade of the dagger seemed to be made out of string.
"It has an equip effect where it lets me lay down some string! Look!"
She waved her dagger through the air, and Kurose could just see a small amount of string, simply floating there.
"It takes some SP whenever I use it, but if I don't summon any more string, then it just stays there."
Kurose hummed at that, and he swiped his hand through the string as Eorna turned around. It seemed to break under the slightest touch, but Eorna seemed to jump slightly at that.
"Huh? It felt like I knew you were coming!" She spoke up.
"That's neat. It's like you are building your own sort of web." Kurose spoke with a small smile. "Spiders rely on the vibrations of their webs, I think, so maybe that's how you knew?"
"Yeah, that sounds about right! Either way, it seems kind of… situational, I guess? Like, how am I ever going to use this in a fight? Especially if it's so easy to break!"
"I'm sure you will find a way." Kurose answered with a shrug.
"Yeah, I guess so. Though I'll probably have a better Dagger before I can even try it out for anything."
Eorna let out a sigh before turning to Woodrow and Orith. "How much longer are we going to be out here?"
The two looked at each other for a moment, seeming to think it over before shrugging.
"Honestly? We can go back whenever. Hell, we don't even need to go back immediately. You can just explore the city or something." Woodrow spoke with a shrug.
Orith nodded his head. "As he said. As long as you get to level 5, the rest of the day is yours to do what you want with."
"Sounds good to me." Kurose admitted with a small smile.
"Let's get going then! The faster we level up, the faster we can get to exploring!" Eorna spoke cheerfully before grabbing hold of Kurose's arm.
She dragged him forward, further into the forest, and he shot a look towards Orith and Woodrow.
Neither moved to do anything, and Kurose shot them both a betrayed look. It was only when Orith spoke up.
"Don't go too far now! If you need any sort of help, just call out for us!"
By the end of their time out, Kurose was at level 5, whilst Eorna was at level 7. Whilst he wasn't sure if it was good progress, Orith and Woodrow seemed to find it to be an acceptable pace of growth.
He had been able to apply a couple of points to the Charme, but due to how slow his Mana regenerated, he hadn't actually gotten to use it yet.
Kurose and Eorna had both decided to split the monsters, with Kurose getting the larger portion between the two for Item Enchantment. Eorna had also taken that moment to tell him about monster drops,
"What, just absorbing monsters gives you items?" Kurose asked her, getting a nod in response.
"Yup!" She agreed with a smile. "Though, not every monster gives something. It's a chance based thing. You can get some basic stuff, like herbs, ores and all that. Oh, but one time I did get a sword!"
"Huh, so we can just get random items for doing what we would have done anyways?"
"Mhm. Go check yours, we absorbed a lot today!"
Kurose did as she said, making his way towards the monster drops menu. There wasn't really much in there, just a bunch of herbs. Maybe this could be a way to get gems? Either that, or he might need to make his way to the gem mines that the King had mentioned last night.
With a shrug, he closed the menu, telling Eorna what he had.
"Mmm… yeah, I don't really have much either, but we can always sell these herbs off if we desperately need to." Eorna suggested. "Or we might be able to make healing salves!"
"Healing salves?" Kurose asked in confusion. He should probably get used to this, with it being a fantasy world and all that.
"I'll answer that." Orith spoke up, earning a nod from Eorna. "Healing salves, as the name suggests, help heal people. It can close up wounds, help fight infections, all of that stuff. It's relatively easy to make, provided you have the right herbs at least."
"So healing salves are the healing potions of this world…" Kurose muttered to himself.
"What was that?"
"Nothing, don't worry about it." He responded, waving him off. He should have expected no one else to understand that "What's the plan now?"
"Well, we did say you could do whatever you want now. If you want to stay out here and level for a bit longer, that's fine. If you want to explore the city, that's also good."
Kurose thought about it for a moment, looking over to Eorna who shrugged. "I'm fine with whatever you choose."
That wasn't exactly helpful but Kurose sighed. "I guess exploring the city then?"
"Of course. Hm… Where to first…" Orith spoke to himself.
"We could go back to the place where we got their armor?" Woodrow offered, earning a curious look from Orith.
"Why? Have you got something in mind?" Orith asked the wizard.
"Yeah, might as well see if he has any accessories in the store. Could help give them a boost." He spoke easily. "Though, I'll admit I'm mainly looking for one for Kurose. Low mana and all that."
"Ah, I see." Orith responded, nodding his head. He thought it over for a moment. "Do either of you have issues with that?"
"Nope!" "No problems here." Eorna and Kurose answered the man.
"Great. Then that's where we will go! Come along now!" Woodrow spoke with a smile.
As they began to walk, Kurose took the pouch from his side that Amarita had given him, looking inside. There was a mixture of coins. A couple of golden ones, plenty more silver and some bronze.
"Does this cash have a name?" Kurose asked, catching up to Orith.
"Hm? Let's see…" Kurose gave him the pouch, and he dug through it, pulling out the three separate coin types. "The golden ones are called Sika, they hold the most value, being worth 100 Serena, the silver ones." He made a show, lifting up the silver one, earning a nod from Kurose.
"So the bronze ones, 100 of them is worth one Serena, right?" Kurose asked, getting a nod in response.
"Indeed. They are called Seran." With that, he put the coins back into the pouch, offering them back to Kurose.
He took it back, looking over the coins for a moment. He debated dropping a few coins into his weapon, to see if it would unlock anything, but decided against it for the time being. There was no point wasting any of his starting funds. He would be able to check it out later probably.
It didn't take the four of them long to return to the store. The man behind the counter seemed to perk up as the bell rang once more, only to frown as he caught sight of Orith.
"Ah, it's you. Back again to haggle me down to a ridiculously low price?" He asked Orith, who held a small smile on his face.
"No no. Not this time. I'm sure Woodrow would have something to say about that."
"Damn right I would." The wizard agreed. "You need to keep your relations good with blacksmiths! You want their best, not their bottom of the barrel goods!"
"At least one of you has sense…" The blacksmith muttered with a shake of his head. He then turned his attention to Kurose and Eorna. "And you must be the Accessory Hero right? And you the Dagger Hero?"
Kurose nodded his head whilst Eorna gave a smile. "Yup! That's us!"
The man was silent for a moment, looking at the pair of them. "Huh, I thought I would feel something, having given armor to two heroes… Then again, you don't really look like heroes at the moment." He shrugged, and Kurose couldn't really find it in himself to be offended.
He didn't think he looked particularly heroic. Especially with the way he shouted about that spider earlier. He shuddered at the thought of it.
"Either way, pleasure to meet you both. Expecting great things from you both, alright?"
"Yup! I understand!" Eorna responded cheerfully.
"I'll try my best to live up to your expectations I guess." Kurose answered him, not as cheerfully as Eorna.
He gave a smile to the pair before speaking once more. "So, what did you come back here for? Issues with your armor, or something else?"
"Actually, we came here for a specific reason." Woodrow spoke up. "Do you perhaps sell accessories here?"
"Accessories, huh?" The man seemed thoughtful for a moment. "Well, I did order a few a couple years back. Thought I was getting ahead of the curve, but as it turns out newer adventurers don't really see the benefit in them. Shame that they didn't sell well. I only have a few left out back, think I gave the rest out as gifts. Give me a few moments."
Once again, the man went out back. However, this time he was quicker, bringing back only a singular bracelet.
"Turns out this is all I have left. Pretty basic enchantment wise. Could have sworn it was better quality though…" He shook his head at that. "Either way, better than nothing. Feel free to take a look."
He placed the bracelet down, giving the group, primarily Kurose and Woodrow, a better look at it.
Woodrow held it in his hands, looking it over for a moment. "Unfortunately, it's not what we are looking for…"
He put it down on the table, and Kurose looked closely at it.
Sapphire Bracelet: Mana Increase (Small)
Quality: Poor
Kurose could definitely see what it meant by the quality being poor. There were small scratches along the metal band, and each of the sapphires embedded into it had chips. He could understand why no one had bought it.
"I mean, this should be fine for now, right?" Kurose asked Woodrow.
"It certainly would work…" Woodrow conceded. "But I'm concerned about just how much of a boost it would give. It's probably not that big, right?" He directed towards the blacksmith.
"Yeah, you're right. It's not a massive boost,, but it's all I have." He spoke apologetically. "If you want a better accessory, it's probably best to go south, towards Orela. Or since you are heroes, you could probably get in contact with the Jewelry tools hero. I'm sure he could whip something up for you."
"That's true, but with the store I talked about earlier, I could probably buy out all of the mana regeneration buffs there at some point." He pointed out.
"You make a good point…" Woodrow seemed to think some more on it before sighing. "Very well. How much would this cost?" Woodrow asked.
The man nodded. "Well, since it's not the best quality, and it's to help the heroes, I can probably chuck a discount on it. Let's say… 35 Serena? I'm not willing to go any lower than that."
"Alright." Kurose agreed immediately.
He wasn't even going to attempt to bring the price any lower. It had never been one of his strengths, whether it be in games or even convincing a friend to give him a discount on something. That was more Sheryls thing.
He quickly took out the 35 Serena, placing it on the counter. The man quickly counted them up, nodding as he did.
"Right, it's all yours then." He spoke, sliding it towards Kurose.
Kurose picked it up and a familiar pop up appeared.
Weapon Copied
Sapphire Bracelet 0/5
(Abilities Locked) Equip Bonus: Mana Increase (Small)
He had forgotten about weapon copying, despite having used it just yesterday. He swapped to it, noticing that his Mana seemed to increase, as per the 'Mana Up' equip bonus.
Now that he had the weapon form, did he really need the bracelet itself? Sure, it would give him even more Mana to work with if he equipped that as well as unlocked the equip bonus, but getting levels would lead to getting more mana.
He looked over the bracelet, mainly focused on the sapphires in it. He could definitely use them for his weapons, but he would ask Eorna first if she used Mana for anything.
"Hey Eorna?"
"Yeah?" Eorna answered immediately.
"Do you need Mana for anything?"
"Mmm… Nope! Why, what are you thinking?"
"Well, I copied the bracelet…" He began.
"Oh yeah! I forgot about that part of our weapons." Eorna spoke with a nod. "But what's that gotta do with asking if I need Mana for stuff?"
"Well, if you don't need it, I was going to ask if it's possible to take the gems out of this?" He directed towards the man behind the counter.
"Take the gems out?" The man asked with a frown. He held out a hand, and Kurose placed the bracelet into it. "Why would you need the gems taken out? That would just ruin the bracelet."
"Ah, well…" Kurose sputtered at that.
Whilst he was fine with talking about his methods with Amarita, Woodrow and Orith, that was mainly because they were people he trusted. Amarita had been the one to tell him information about heroes was highly sought after, and the other two were specifically chosen by her.
So what was he going to say was the reasoning for wanting the gems removed?
Thankfully for Kurose, Eorna came to his rescue.
"Oh! That's because of some special hero stuff we can do with gems!" She answered quickly, a small smile on her face.
The man seemed to take the answer at face value, nodding his head before looking back to the bracelet.
"Well… I could do it. It might take me a bit though. Are you fine with giving me until tomorrow?"
"That's fine. We can come In tomorrow, right?" He asked Woodrow and Orith.
"Should be able to. Though I do need to pick up a few things tomorrow before our lesson, so if you want, I can just swing by and get them. I'll be able to hand them off to you when I arrive?"
"That would be good, Thank you." Kurose spoke with a smile, earning a wave from Woodrow.
"It's no problem, now let's get you back to the castle, yeah? Got a long day ahead of you both tomorrow." Woodrow spoke with a grin.
Both Kurose and Eorna nodded their heads at that, waving goodbye towards the shop owner as they made their way out of the door.
As night fell, a singular man sat at a desk, his fingers drumming against the wood. It had been almost a day since the king, his father, had left.
"Damned bastard…" Kabir muttered to himself angrily. "If he had just let me go to Dajero, I could have had the damned dagger already, but no, father knows best." He spoke mockingly.
Behind him, a cloaked figure appeared, kneeling down. The prince didn't react, still speaking angrily to himself. "Bah, I'll show the bastard who knows best."
"My lord?" The cloaked figure asked.
"What is it?" He spat out, spinning to face the cloaked figure. "Can't you see I'm busy!"
"My apologies. I came to tell you that the Wyrden are in place for tomorrow. Our insider has managed to do what you have asked. The false king should be severely weakened by tomorrow, fit for the remaining Wyrden to finish off."
"I see. And is there a reason it cannot be done tonight? I specifically asked for him to be killed immediately, did I not?" He bit out.
"You did." The Wyrden answered. "However, we deemed it fit to do tomorrow morning, due to the time needed for the poison to take effect. Regardless of how it goes, the news should spread fast, and you will be crowned at once my lord."
"I see. Leave me now. Report back only once it is confirmed." Kabir spoke dismissively.
"Of course. I will see you tomorrow, my lord." The Wyrden bowed their head once more before disappearing, leaving the prince alone once more.
"Everything is going to plan. Now, I just need to figure out how to deal with the damned Dagger Hero…"
He seemed to stare into the empty space before him before a small smirk pulled at his lips.
"Ah…So she has a sister, hm?" A small chuckle escaped him as he said that. "Truly, this gift is fantastic! With it, I'm able to do whatever I want!"
Outside of the room, a singular maid stood, washing the windows as she let out another sigh.
"It's always whenever I'm cleaning the windows in this section that he laughs like a maniac…" She murmured to herself. "Just a few more days then I'll be on leave… surely nothing bad will happen…"